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Nats are scouting Texas’ Wilson

The Nationals have sent a scout to Oakland to watch Rangers left-hander C.J. Wilson pitch against the Athletics on Wednesday, according to two baseball sources.

It more than likely means that the Nationals will have interest in Wilson, who is a free agent after the World Series.

Wilson, 30, is arguably one of the best pitchers in the American League. This season, for example, Wilson is 16-7 with a 2.97 ERA and 198 strikeouts. Once a reliever, Wilson was put in the Rangers’ rotation last year and helped them win the American League pennant.

Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo was not available for comment, but it’s not a secret that Washington is looking to add starting pitching this offseason.

I agree. Strasburg, Zimmermann, Wang, Lannan, Milone, Detwiler, Peacock — that’s seven good arms to compete for five slots. This year the Nats went with Livan because they didn’t have five starters better than him. Much as I love Livan, he won’t even be in the hunt this year.

Not sure we’ll need Wilson after seeing Milone and Detwiler throw recently. I mean, I’ll take Wilson, nut in that case, we need to ship Lannan and probably another young arm to make room for some of the Talent coming. Peacock will most likely compete for a spot too. Although, they’ll probably start him in Triple A and bring him up in June. Also remember that Stras will be on a Pitch count next year. So more starting Pitching will be valuable but I just don’t see room for Lannan if Wilson is signed. Which is fine with me.

First of all if we want to compete with the Phils and the Braves we need better 3, 4, and 5 starters. Stras and Zimm are a great 1-2 but it falls off sharply after that. It’s good to see Milone, Detwiler, and Peacock throwing well now, but they are not even close to sure things next year. Also, Wang is a free agent next year, so he is not even on the team unless we resign him. Go get Wilson! He will be a great #3 and then Detwiler, Milone and Peacock can fight for 4 and 5. Also – We need a CF that can hit for average and steal some bases. GO NATS

Nothing wrong with adding a quality pitcher from outside and packaging some of the homegrown talent to fill in the obvious other holes the Nats have with their offense. Toughest part of having talent in the system is accepting the fact that many of them will never really make it and some will make it elsewhere.

Stand Pat! Rizzo’s two big free agent pick-ups last year (Werth and LaRoche) are pretty much busts, although Werth will have a better second year. The Nats starting pitchers are above average and getting better with experience. Our bullpen can play with anybody. We just need three of our players to step-it-up: Desmond, Werth, and Espinoza all need to add 20 points to their BA’s and we will be in the playoffs. My question is: What do we do with Bernadina?

No problem with adding a solid, young veteran to help blend with Stras, Zimm, Detweiler and our two new gems, Milone and Peacock. But we need a bat in that outfield to go with Werth and Morse next year. If Nix is NOT the answer, let’s go get the best available bat to put out there while we wait for Bryce Harper. We cannot lose another 24 or so games because we leave two or three on base with no outs. We are set at all of the other slots, including catcher, 2nd base, SS, Third and first with LaRoche coming back. IF he does not make it back all the way, Morse back at first with another outfielder to bolster our lineup. Bob Mills

I am concerned that Rizzo is using the final two weeks to showcase the Nat’s young talent as trade bait. If he trades Milone, Peacock, Lombardozzi or Marrero to pick up a 30 year old retread like Wilson he will be trading away our future. Rizzo does not impress.,

CJ Wilson will be a Type A free agent. At the moment, the Nats are the 15th worst team in baseball, being just slightly worse than the Indians. That means their first round pick will be protected if they sign Wilson. However, if the Nats pull ahead of the Indians in the last four games of the season, their first round pick will no longer be protected — making it much more damaging to take a class A free agent like Wilson.

The Nats have done so well in recent drafts that it seems unlikely that they will take a Class A free agent unless their top draft pick is protected.

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